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What I want to do here shouldn't be hard. On OS X (Mountain Lion) I need to take screen captures, without subtitles, in jpg form and save them to the directory I want (preferably with an easy keyboard shortcut). But I can't seem to find a player that can do all those things the way MPC can for Windows.

I've tried three forks of MPlayer. MplayerX takes screenshots and lets me choose the file type, but I can't find any way to take them without screenshots. Mplayer extended (both builds) doesn't seem to allow me to choose anything but PNG (way too big) or choose the destination directory, though it will take captures without the subs.

So I tried VLC, though I'm not a fan. It allows me to set a directory and choose .jpg, and even lets me choose a keyboard shortcut. But I can't figure out any way to take a cap without the subs.

Taking caps through the OS should be an option - you can choose the format and destination through terminal, and change the shortcut in System Preferences. But any caps taken by OS X have subs, no matter the player.

If anyone can offer me a way out of this box, I'd be very grateful - my OCD is not allowing me to deal with this gracefully. It shouldn't be this hard, should it?

The best you can do is an automator script. Just change the directory of where screenshots will go and then run a automator script that follows to convert the images:

Screenshots is the folder where the screenshots are stored. Save it as a service for MPlayer OS X Extended with no input. Afterwards, this will be accessible when you run MPlayer OS X Extended under the Services menu.

I don't know how MplayerX works and how much you can configure it but for Mplayer to not have the subtitle on the screenshot you need to have only "-vf-add screenshot" on the command line, if you have "-vf-add ass -vf-add screenshot" or -vf ass,screenshot" then you will have the subtitle (it's probably what Mplayer extended do). Mplayer save the screenshot (only in png) in its working directory so if you can change that then at the same time you will be able to change where it puts the screenshots.

All those configuration can be done with smplayer a front-end for mplayer, I don't know if its available for mac.

Yes, the automator workflow can be used to convert files... In fact, Automator is pretty helpful in automating repetitive tasks and it's pretty easy to create workflows without knowing any program skills.

Yes, the automator workflow can be used to convert files... In fact, Automator is pretty helpful in automating repetitive tasks and it's pretty easy to create workflows without knowing any program skills.

Thanks very much for the suggestion - I ended up going this route and so far, so good. I'm actually using it with UMPlayer, which seemed to come closest to what I need - it does everything except allow me to specify .jpg captures, and the workflow can handle that.